Worship – A Dress Rehearsal for Eternity

Every Lord’s Day serves as a dress rehearsal for life in our eternal home in heaven. How wonderful to know that history is moving towards a great end: The worship of the one, true, living God. This is the goal and climax of human history. How do we know this?

Revelation 7:9 describes the heavenly scene:

“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’”

1 Peter 2:9-10 informs us that worship is not only the goal of human history, but also the goal of our salvation We are saved “to declare his excellencies” (1 Peter 2:9). If worship is what God has saved us for, then it is worship to which we ought to zealously devote ourselves. It should be the most important activity of our earthly lives

A steady zeal for worship comes as we remember why we worship. According to 1 Peter 2:9, there are three reasons why we praise the Lord:

He has “called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

He has made us His people.

He has given us great mercy.

John Calvin offers this rationale for why we should reflect on how indebted we are to God’s mercy: “Men will never worship God with a sincere heart, or be roused to fear and obey Him with sufficient zeal, until they properly understand how much they are indebted to His mercy ”